Some New Tunes

Seeing as today marks the official release of HAWP’s new CD, “Storm & Calm”, (a copy of which you can get at the band’s home page) I thought I’d celebrate by posting some of the tunes that I’d written that made it onto the recording.

Here’s the list of newbies.

Reels

The Trip to St. John’s The Unfinished

The Dancing Moon

Who is Keyser Szose?

The Cost of Knowing

 

Jigs

Don’t Roll Over

Aoife’s Two Step

The Wullywoo Part

 

Other Tune Types

Two Left Feet

 

Be sure to check  out the Tunebook at thetriskellstudio.com for a complete list of originals.

I hope you enjoy the tunes, and if you start playing them, please drop a line  and let me know! It’ll make my day.

Cheers for now,

J.

Cycles

Its funny how so many things flow in cycles. Up, down; busy, not so busy.

This summer was largely what you’d call the “ not-so-busy” part of the cycle.  Things were pretty quiet musically, with the time split between goofing off and logging hours in the practice room (always a good thing), learning new tunes and listening a lot . Also doing some serious thinking about “music” in general (see my previous post). Now, it seems, that time has past as the fall gears up for the “busy” part of the cycle.

To start, I’ll be teaching at the Riverside Celtic College again this term and am really looking forward to it. I’ve got all kinds of tricksy things in store for my unsuspecting participants. (heh heh heh) Some new private students are in the mix, too. And there are some new teaching possibilities under development for 2010, so that’s rather exciting.

There’s also the Flute Fracas (or the Southwestern Ontario Fluter’s Gathering, or whatever name we use) starting up a new blog.  A bunch of us flute geeks from between London and Toronto meet fairly often to play together, share tunes and tips and enjoy each other’s company.  At the last meeting, we decided to start a blog to make the sharing easier and open it to other flutey-folk who can’t always make it out to Toronto for one of these things. There are some pretty amazing players in this little group and with some luck, we’ll be able to “collectively raise the bar in Irish flute playing” in the province! More details to come on that one.

On the performing front, I’ll be doing some work with the Grand River Ceili Band starting in September and am really looking forward to that. They’re a great bunch of folks and the dances are always so much fun!  Then there are no less than three new personal projects on the horizon, all of which will launch before the end of December. Music selection, arranging, rehearsing, booking – all happening at once! The past few weeks have seen quite the unusual sleep schedule, let me tell you. 

The best part of all of this: each and every one of these things is about the people involved. Sharing the music and the dancing, the camaraderie, and the joy of it all.

Let’s hear it for cycles!

Another late night, musing…

Sometimes I sit and think about what being able to play music means. Or how “music” fits into the great scheme of things.  (I do this quite often, actually.) I wonder to myself:

Is it all about gigging? Self-expression? Competitions and awards? Trying to achieve some kind of notoriety? 

Is it just another kind of job?

Maybe its about trying to be part of something larger than oneself, learning and sitting in an ongoing tradition? In the case of traditional and folk music, maybe part of it is about preserving and perpetuating something of perceived value that’s come before?

Maybe its the ongoing challenge of mastering voice or instrument (or several) with ever greater degrees of refinement? Maybe its the mastery of oneself that that process entails?

That’s a lot of ”maybe’s”. Each of them are part of it, to a greater or lesser degree, and each is worthy in its own right. But they’re not the answer. The more I play, the more time I spend in musical endeavours, the more music impacts my life as a whole, the more it seems that  its simpler than all of those things. 

For me, music is about joy and people. Bringing joy both to others and to yourself. Its about being able to take a gift and give it back. Its about being a living part of life, shared with others: comforting, entertaining, strengthening…and not something compartmentalized and reserved for a stage.

Music, at its best,  has to be in service to something else, not just a gig.

Post-Festival: Mill Race 2009

Andy, Niamh, Anne & I had a great time playing the Mill Race Festival of Traditional Folk Music this past weekend in Cambridge, ON. Luckily, we had one of the few rain-free weekends of the summer; the weather was gorgeous and perfect for three days of non-stop outdoor performances.

Lots of great music, great tunes with fantastic players, and complete exhaustion!

On the Mill Race amphitheatre stage

Friday night saw Andy & I play a nice set as the Hawp Duo @ Cafe 13. True, there were some minor scheduling mixups on the organizers’ end, but we got through it and a number of friends came out to catch the set with last minute notice. Thanks to ya’ll!!

A friendly audience!

Saturday was a day full of workshops & performances for the band. While Andy was doing his thing on guitar-ish instruments and Anne did fiddle duties, I had the treat of doing a “winds” spot with Pat O’Gorman (Brian Pickell Band) and Norah Rendell (The Outside Track).

It was such a pleasure playing with both of them, laughing and going around and around, playing tunes and chatting up the hearty souls who came out to hear us.  The afternoon had us playing one of our best sets of the weekend in the Civic square. The evening came to a close around 1:30 am after a few tunes with Pat, Julie & their kids, Brian Pickell, James Stephens, Beth, Mary and the lot.

 

 

Niamh tickles the ivories

Sunday, was more of the same: workshops and two afternoon performance spots. Our first of the day was coloured by the wind trying its best to take the tent we were playing under and whisking it away to Oz. But thanks to a few hearty friends and audience members who kept hold on the tent poles, we stayed happily earth-bound. Our second, and final, spot of the festival was pure magic. The Mill Race amphiteatre is a perfect concert setting, and grand fun was had by all.  Even the stumbling down the street to the pub for dinner was fun!

 

Aside from the gigs, Mill Race really impressed me with its leves of community involvement. There had to have been almost an army of volunteer staff taking care of the performers, the audiences, everyone – and they did it extremely well. The sound techs were brilliant. To top it all off, the festival organizers hired local groups to host the round-the-clock session that ran at the Golden Kiwi pub. So even if a group wasn’t on a stage this year, there was still a potential gig to be had. Fair play, Mill Race!

 

Andy & Anne tearin' up The Fisherman Boy

A great festival and a grand time!

New tracks and Hawp back in the saddle!

Its been a couple of months since Hawp has had the chance to play together, following Andy & Niamh’s relocation to Nova Scotia. But as we gear up for this weekend’s spots at the Mill Race Festival of Traditional Folk Music in lovely Cambridge, ON, its better than ever!

Today’s rehearsal began shortly after 2 pm, was followed by a wonderful pasta dinner with good friends and then tunes until about 11 pm! It was such a joy to be playing again, and we all felt it.  Having spent the better part of April laying down tracks for the band’s debut CD, Storm & Calm (due out in November along with an Ontario release tour), we’ve  gotten much tighter as a group, our arrangements have become more inventive and there’s a good deal of creative flow.  I can’t wait until Friday night!

The festival itself is going to be blast. The performers are all top notch, and run the gamut of folk music styles. I’m particularly thrilled as I’ll finally be able to catch the Brian Pickell Band live! Plus, some great local players will be hosting sessions throughout the weekend, so there will be plenty of opportunity to relax and have some tunes.

Speaking of tunes…

This past Friday, my good friend Beth & I recorded a couple of new tracks for a project we’re developing and we’re quite excited about them.  The two tracks, a set of reels called “V.B.’s Reels” and a jig set called “The Mouse in the Mug” have both been posted to my Myspace page for now, so anyone can check them out.  The group is going to be much more traditional in style: very pared down, with a greater focus on the tunes and repertoire rather than the production aspect.

That’s all for now! Happy tuning!

Great Fun @ the Maynooth Celtic Festival

We had a wonderful time playing the Maynooth Celtic Festival this past weekend! Gorgeous country, great hospitality, wonderful folks.

Our Maynooth Home - The Arlington Hostel

The  Friday afternoon drive up was plagued with traffic snarls (argh!) until we got outside TO.  After that, though…a nice, scenic ride. Had dinner at a nice little pub in Bancroft and got to town around 8 pm.  I spent much of the evening just sitting out back of the hostel, listening to the night sounds and looking up at the stars.

I got to do some sight-seeing the next day.  All I can say is that this country is absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of Upstate NY or Western PA. Very few people around, wonderfully quiet with the sounds of birds, insects and the breeze for company. Sigur Ros was the soundtrack as I drove around the edge of Algonquin Provincial Park.

 

It feels very “open” : a lot of space to think & feel. I love it. In another life, I could easily see myself living here. I think it might be a somewhat lonely or bittersweet way, but very alive in many ways.

 

The Saturday evening concert went really well, followed by a short ceili and then a session back at the hostel till early morning. Met some fine players up there, including Kevin (flute & whistle) & his daughter Deirdre (bodhran) from Ottawa and a lovely banjo player whose name I didn’t get. 

Kevin, Andy post-concert @ the Arlington

 

Dierdre

Interestingly, Kevin knew many of my old friends from the Philadelpia and it was great fun catching up and sharing news. The banjo player – who was in his 70’s and didn’t look a day past 60 – was a logger and builder. He was known in the area as “the forest gardener” due to his deep knowledge of trees. There was such a good vibe coming from him and his music; he seemed generally “happy” in a way that I’d love to be when I reach his age.

Dan & Anne

After the session, Andy & I took a short 1:30 am hike to find a waterfall he’d come across earlier in the day on a bike ride. With the moon as bright as it was and all the stars, we didn’t need any other light and just hung out for a while listening to the water. The spray from the waterfall created a beautiful nimbus around the moonlight as it was broken but the tree tops.

As we drove home Sunday morning, we stopped off at Eagle’s Nest Park in Bancroft to check out the view, and weren’t disappointed at the detour.

Eagle's Nest Park Overlook - Bancroft, ON

 I”ll definitely need to go back there.

Hawp Begins Recording This Week

 Hawp begins recording tracks for the new CD this week, which is tentatively scheduled for release in the Fall. No firm title yet, but probably something to do with storms.

The material is mostly original and there will be a nice balance of tune sets and song tracks. The arrangements are shaping up to be nice and full with a wide range of moods. Upbeat reels, bouncy jigs, exotic, odd-time signature tunes, songs about lost fisher folk, hauntings, love… its all going to be there.

We’ll be working in a beautiful old farm house while we record the bulk of the instrumental tracks, thanks to the generosity of two wonderful friends, Paul and Teresa.

So its off to sequester for the next few days. More to come when there’s time to breathe!

Dulcimerhead & Spiritfest – Newmarket, ON

A few months ago I met this really cool artist & mountain dulcimer player, David Rankine, at the Owen Sound Celtic Festival. We were sitting next to each other in a “Tunesmithing” workshop where, you guessed it, we shared our tunes and talked about how we write them. We both liked each others stuff and chatted a bit. A few months went by, we chatted some more. Repeat. Then back in February David told me his group, Dulcimerhead, was going to be putting out a new CD and would I be interested in sitting in on the release concert. “Sure,” I said.

Said CD release happened yesterday in Newmarket, ON. And it was a blast.

David and his crew organized a day-long event celebrating all aspects of creativity, which they called Spiritfest, and set their concert at the capstone. Crafters,  environmental presenters, viking historical re-creationists, the York Food Bank…all kinds of folks were there. I even sat in on my first drum circle. It was a wonderful day, and had a very strong sense of community about it.

Spoken-word artist/chant-poet/drummer Daniela Godina opened the concert, hitting everyone with her dark, captivating voice.  She has some real power, and I can see why David has referred to Daniela as ”a female Jim Morrison.”  The energy coming off of Daniela was palpable.

 

Dulcimerhead’s material was great- an interesting mix of sounds, often sounding like an Appalachian thrash-band from Morocco. (Power chords on a lap dulcimer – who’d of thought that one? ) There was all kinds of room to stretch out musically, using very simple structures and a brilliant sense of improvisational communication.

 

Getting to play with these folks was a real treat. It’s been a while since I’ve been in such a strongly improvisational setting where anything goes. You just listen hard, watch each other and create from nothing but a groove,  a harmonic progression and your gut.

We’d planned to do only a couple of numbers together, but towards the end of the second set, David turned to Daniela and I and said, “Hey, wanna do something in D?” That was it. So we all got up on stage together and we were off.  No idea what was going to happen or how, but it all came together to the point where we were giddy afterwards. And based on the remarks from the folks who came out to hear the show, they liked it, too. 

David calls this kind of thing “open source creativity,” a basic structure where everything just flows and there’s space for everyone involved to contribute and grow - audience and performers, equally and alike. There’s a heavy community-building focus to it, though perhaps in a more intuitive way rather than as an explicitly planned goal. All of us who spent time at Spiritfest and the concert seemed to connect in one way or another, falling into helping roles, enjoying the gifts we had to offer, either as artists, cooks, merchants, performers. It was about the people being there, not about selling stuff.

It was about music functioning in a way other than simple entertainment, which I think is what its all about.

Yesterday was a great day. It was as simple as that.

Not by tunes alone…

Nothing exists in a vacuum…

As a college freshman entering the jazz program at Manhattan School of Music, I had a philosophy professor who asked us newbies an interesting question. In a rough paraphrase, he said, “Do you think there is any point in a bunch of aspiring musicians being required to take non-music (i.e. liberal art) courses?” We all thought about and discussed this for a while. Eventually he said, “If you want your music to speak to or about human experience, then you need to know what it is that you’re talking about. One way to do that…aside from living consciously…is to study and read widely.” This idea has always stuck with me.

So to share, here’s a short list of books from my own shelves and which I’d recommend to anyone who has the interest to explore them.

(*** = highly recommended.)

 

BIOGRAPHY

Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest (Eric Nisenson. Da Capo Press, 1995)
A “musical biography” of one of jazz music’s greatest saxophonists. Nisenson’s writing centers around Trane’s musical development and his lasting influence. A must read.

Chasin’ the Trane: The Music and Mystique of John Coltrane (J.C. Thomas. Da Capo Press, 1988)
Good introduction to Trane’s life.

***Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation (Eric Nisenson. Da Capo Press, 2000)
Sonny Rollins is considered by many to be the “world’s greatest living improviser,” and this book is a wonderful exploration of his musical philosophy. Plenty of implications for the place of improvisation and variation in traditional music.

 

CREATIVITY

***Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking (David Bayles and Ted Orland. Consortium Book Sales & Dist., 2001)
The authors present a very insightful look at the process of “artmaking” – painting, music, writing and other forms are all addressed – from the point of view of “the working artist.”

The Courage to Create (Rollo May. W.W. Norton & Co., 1994)
One of the first formal “studies” on creativity from a psychological perspective. A bit of a Freudian slant, but a good read regardless.

Creative Spirituality: The Way of the Artist (Robert Wuthnow. Univ. of CA Press, 2001)
An anthology of case studies of numerous musicians, artists, writers & performers, exploring the connection between creative endeavors and the spiritual life

***Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Stephen Nachmanovich. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1990.)

Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music (Derek Bailey. Da Capo Press, 1993)

 

FICTION

***Dreams Underfoot (Charles De Lint. TOR, 1993) The first of De Lint’s “Newford” short story collections. Other volumes include, The Ivory and the Horn, Moonlight and Vines and Tapping the Dream Tree.

***The Merro Tree (Katie Waitman. Del Rey, 1997) An excellent study of art and censorship in a sci-fi setting.

***Someplace To Be Flying (Charles De Lint. TOR, 1998) My favorite De Lint novel

 

IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Bringing It All Back Home (Nuala O’Connor. Merlin Publishing, 2001)
Written originally as a television series in the UK, this is an interesting study of the history and influence of traditional music, both in Ireland and abroad. Packed with great information and reads a bit like a survey course textbook

Folk Music and Dances of Ireland (Brendan Breathnach. Ossian Publications, 1971)
A standard work.

A Pocket History of Irish Music (Gearoid O hAllmhurain. Obrien Press, Ltd., 2003)
A small little tome, just packed w/ information! A great beginning resource.

 

PHILOSOPHY / PSYCHOLOGY / SPIRITUALITY

Finite and Infinite Games (James P. Carse. Ballantine Books, 1994)

The Resilient Spirit: Transforming Suffering Into Insight and Renewal (Polly Young-Eisendrath. Perseus Publishing, 1997)
An excellent discussion of “resiliency,” that set of traits that allows one to endure hardship and suffering and not be destroyed by it.

 

MUSIC – GENERAL

Mental Practice and Imagery for Musicians (Malva Freymuth, D.M.A. Integrated Pr., 1999)
Freymuth presents some interesting ideas to enhance performance and optimize practice time.

Music, The Brain and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination (Robert Jourdain. Avon, 1998)
A very thorough account of the experience of music from the neurological, biological and psychological perspectives. A bit of a “heavy” read, but fascinating when you get into it.

***The Touring Musician (Hal Galper. Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000)
A look at the business end of things written by a musician, for musicians. Great practical, step-by-step guidance on every aspect of “serious” performing.

Beggar’s Road in Meaford

A week or so ago we went on one of our “Random Roads” jaunts up towards Owen Sound with the express intent of ending up in Meaford to catch muso friend Tara MacKenzie playing a show with Beggar’s Road. Its was a gorgeous day, the country was beautiful, few enough people on the road and new tunes on the CD player.

We arrived in Meaford a little early and so got to hang out in town a bit, checking out the area. Meaford is a neat little town, touching right on Lake Huron. Great view of the lake, friendly …ok, hungry… seagulls, gorgeous escarpment country. The show was being put on at McGinty’s Cafe, a neat combination cafe/antique shop/peformance space.  (These funky multi-use spaces in small towns in Ontario are just way too cool!) The folks at the Cafe were very hospitable and the room was really nice: good acoustics, roomy, full service bar, etc. Definitely a place to check out for a gig (hint).

Beggar’s Road put on a great show.  All of the folks in this band have great chops and play really well. They have a nice electro-acoustic take on their material and present a sound that  mixes elements of country, celtic, folk and rock .

Their vocalists are quite impressive. Justine Maw-Farrar is incredible. Her voice is silky-smooth, with just the right touch of country-gospel-folk, and has tremendous power.  Tara MacKenzie is another amazing vocalist with serious chops.  Despite performing while ill,  she was spot on,  and her original songs added a wonderful Irish touch to the night.  Dave Farrar rounds out the vocal duties with a powerful delivery. These powerhouses handle the front line quite ably, and their harmonies added colour and excitement to the night.

The band’s writing and arrangements were wonderfully inventive and full of unexpected harmonies, playful grooves and highlight their tight ensemble playing. This was particularly apparent in their  treatment of “The Blacksmith,” a  common traditional song.  Other highlights included “Ceilidh in the Glen” and “West Island Rail.”

We were so happy to have been able to catch their show and look forward to doing so again. Fair play to you, Beggar’s Road!